


Because the world is cruel, and life even more so.

by LunaDeSangre



Series: Tilted Sideways [2]
Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabbles, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2019-08-11 02:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 5,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16466651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaDeSangre/pseuds/LunaDeSangre
Summary: Kelly Severide—without Matt Casey.Or: Kelly Severide, with his heart ripped out.





	1. October 9th to 10th

**Author's Note:**

> This is the point where I give up and make this weird thing an universe. Aaaargh!
> 
> Expect little drabble thingies at random, irregular intervals.

He's gone before Kelly can put on his shoes, never mind any clothes, and then he doesn't pick up his phone. Kelly tries and tries and tries, and then leaves messages after messages, the whole damn night. It starts with _Dammit, Matt_ and ends, somewhere around dawn, with _Matt, please, please, please, just tell me you're okay, that's all I want, I just want to know you're okay_.

That's the point where he calls Voight's team: obviously, Matt isn't okay.

And Matt's cellphone can be located, alright. It's in the lake.

_In the lake_.


	2. October 10th

Stella's made them both coffee, the rest of the night, trying to get him to calm down, trying to get him to sit down, trying to reason him, to tell him Matt's probably just gone home or to somebody else.

But Matt's place is empty, and really, there's nobody else.

At dawn, shakily scrolling through his contacts for Jay Halstead's name, he hears her call the Chief. Her voice wobbles a little.


	3. October 10th

Technically, he should be on shift, but he's never even shown up at the firehouse. He's just left and drove to the lake—drove like a madman. Halstead's managed to beat him there anyway.

He blocks every single one of Kelly's attempts to thoughtlessly, desperately rush in the cold water, going so far as to get his handcuffs out and threaten him with them. Kelly only stops trying when the Chief gets there, clamps both hands on his shoulders, and gives no indication he's planning on letting go.

" _Kelly_ ," he just says, heavily, " _let them do their jobs_."


	4. October 10th

He ends up sitting in the opening of his own truck, in civilian gear, shivering uncontrollably. Someone drapes his own coat over him. Stella sits on his left, full gear and determined face on, though her eyes look worried.

He's just left her there, in the apartment, when he heard where Matt's phone was. Without even a thought.

Halstead leans against the truck on his right, a hand near his handcuffs, eyeing him sideways every minute or so, but otherwise watching Tony give Capp more line and Ruzek try and direct them to the exact location.

They both look ready to grab him, if he makes a move toward the water again.


	5. October 10th

Matt's phone, when they find it, cheerfully informs them Kelly's called eighty-seven times and left thirty-two messages.

"Good thing it's one of those new waterproof models," Halstead sighs, "I don't suppose you know his password?"

He doesn't. No one does.

No one points out maybe _Dawson_ does.


	6. October 10th

They search the water all day, and continue into the night. First and Third Watch come by and help, the other Squads and _their_ off-shift crew come by and help, other on and off-duty firefighters with diving certifications come by and help.

No one will let _him_ help.

"You're not thinking objectively, Lieutenant," Boden tells him for the umpteenth time, "I can't let you go in there."

He gets it, really. It's just that he can't stop imagining Matt _drowning in there_.


	7. October 10th

It's Squad 3's call: they're on the scene until further notice, with Boden in charge instead of him, and the other Squads alternate covering their usual ground, depending on who's in the water. 51 is holding up the fort back at the firehouse. 61 stays on standby with Kelly's team, just in case—but 81 is forced to keep functioning.

Without their Captain.

"You'll tell us, the instant there's any news?" Hermann asks several times, more and more grim-faced and more and more sooty as the shift drags on and on and on.

"Yeah, of course," Kelly mumbles, each time. "You guys be careful."

 _Matt wouldn't want anything to happen to you_ is on the tip of his tongue, each time. He doesn't say it.


	8. October 10th

Every time Stella is on a call, Brett stays besides him instead. The first time, she opens her mouth like she's going to try to reassure him somehow, then apparently thinks better of it.

Instead she just sits there quietly, every time, a silent presence radiating sad, helpless compassion.

Kelly just watches his men dive over and over, numbly thankful nobody is offering him empty platitudes.

He couldn't take anyone telling him it's going to be okay: he knows far too well how fast life can get ugly.


	9. October 10th

He won't believe Matt is dead until he sees a body. He's determined not to. They've found his phone, but maybe that's all there was to find, maybe he's just thrown it—maybe he's not in there.

Maybe he's still alive, somewhere.

But that can't stop his imagination: there's been, over the years, far too many people he couldn't save. Now they all seem to have Matt's face.

And drowning is not the only horrible way to die.


	10. October 10th

Cindy and Donna drop by around sunset, along with the Chaplain and food for everyone. Kelly shakes his head at Cindy with a mumbled _thank you_ when she offers him a sandwich: he doesn't see how he could eat.

She squishes his hand instead. Her smile is shaky and her eyes are wet.

He has no reassurances to offer.


	11. October 10th

Donna's methods are more tough: "Drink," she orders, thrusting a bottle of water in his face. "And then you're eating that sandwich," she adds in the same tone, holding another one up. "You won't be able to help anyone if you collapse."

He doesn't point out he's not allowed to help anyone right now. He drinks the water and eats the sandwich. It all tastes worse than ashes.

She sits besides him while he does, determined patience with kind eyes, and squishes him around the shoulders before moving on to another victim.

It does make him feel a little bit less like some kind of hollowed-out zombie.


	12. October 10th

The Chaplain makes him move: "I won't pretend to tell you how to feel," he says, bodily hauling him up, "and I'm not trying to get you to tell me how you do. But Kelly, don't fall apart on us just yet. You've had a sandwich, now go to the bathroom. There's a small pub back there—" he indicates the way they've all come from "—who's kindly agreed to let us use their facilities. I'll keep watch until you come back."

Kelly wants to argue, really. But he understands that too—knows what he would say to someone waiting hours and hours on the shoreline for news of a loved one: _take care of yourself first, they're gonna need you to be okay for them_.

But he'd also say _we're doing our best_ , knowing full well sometimes that's not enough.

"I'll keep watch until you come back, Kelly," Orlovsky repeats, "you trust me to keep watch for you, don't you?"

Kelly does trust him. So he nods, vaguely, and Stella takes his arm, and he puts one foot in front of the other and carefully doesn't look back at the lake he's leaving behind with every step.


	13. October 10th

The thing is, at this stage, Kelly knows only too well it's either all completely useless, or a recovery. He knows him taking his eyes off that now darkened point where Capp came back up with Matt's phone will not do anything: Matt is either dead or not there—there stopped being an inbetween hours and hours ago. If there ever was one in the first place.

He knows, but rationality is not the strong suit of someone waiting hours and hours on the shoreline for news of a loved one. And while Kelly knows _that_ , too, it doesn't stop him from hurrying them all the way back.

Of course, nothing at all has changed, and Matt is still missing.


	14. October 11th

Nothing changes—until halfway through the night: Halstead is suddenly back at Kelly's elbow, looking at him intently with his phone to his ear. Kelly sits up, unaware he'd been huddling down under his coat. His throat is tight.

"Alright," Halstead says, not looking away from him, expression unreadable one way or the other. "I'll get him there ASAP."

Then he hangs up, puts his phone back in his pocket, and, holding Kelly's gaze, seems unable to find his voice.

Numbly, Kelly gets to his feet, coat falling off. "What is it," he croaks desperately. He's expecting the worst, really.

Halstead doesn't disappoint: "Kelly," he says softly, "we need you for a possible identification, down at...at the morgue."

The world goes _completely_ dark, for a few seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: I'm posting these as I write them from now on, meaning you're going to get them in a very random order and there'll be gaps. I'll be rearranging chapters as I go, and they're all dated now, so hopefully it won't be _that_ confusing? (Please just wait until you see the _completed work_ box ticked if you don't like this method—that should take, uh, about ten years, probably. And that's if I don't, you know, die in the meantime.)


	15. October 11th

"We got him two hours ago," the ME explains, leading him and Halstead down a gloomy corridor, "we were busy with multiple urgent clients for Violent Crimes, so we only just saw the memo. We won't have time to start on him until tomorrow, and the lab's overworked too, so we thought it best to contact you as soon as we realized you can potentially give us an ID."

She's mostly talking to Halstead, voice coldly professional: this is obviously routine for her. It's not _potentially her friend_.

Halstead throws another concerned glance his way, and Kelly does his best to give a somewhat steady nod: he can do this. He can. There's no way he can wait for fingerprints or DNA results.

His stomach, though, has definitely relocated to his throat.


	16. October 11th

Beaten to death.

It makes sense, Kelly supposes, to ask how someone died, when you're here to see if they're your missing friend. Or at least, it had been automatic, him asking.

But.

 _Beaten to death_.

The hair is the wrong shade, darker, though not by much. Even its length is about right. The height, too, and the general built.

But _the hair is the wrong shade_ , and Matt's shoulders are less round, his collar bone more pronounced, his toes longer.

It's all Kelly needs, but it's also as far as he can go: nothing about the swollen, destroyed face is even human-looking anymore. Even the ears haven't be spared.

"It's not him," he hears himself say, weakly, distantly.

"Are you sure?" the woman in the white coat echoes quietly, like through a thick fog.

Kelly nods mutely, desperately trying to tear his eyes away.

 _Beaten to death_. He can taste bile in his mouth: it's not Matt, but it could have been.


	17. October 11th

"We tracked the path of his phone, before he threw it," Ruzek explains to him as soon as he's seated, "he walked to the lake from his apartment, that's why we found his truck back there, I guess. It wasn't a straight line, though—it's more like he wandered around aimlessly for a while and ended up there without thinking about it."

"Okay," Kelly half-whispers, half-asks, sure that there's bad news coming and sure that he's never going to get the image of Matt numbly wandering alone in the darkened Chicago streets out of his mind.

"Before that," Ruzek continues with a deep breath, "he actually drove straight from your place to his—he just...walked away instead of getting in."

Kelly has to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose so he doesn't start crying—or screaming: if he'd gone _right_ after Matt, instead of trying to call him, he might actually have caught him.


	18. October 11th

Matt, when Kelly last saw him, was wearing jeans and a black hoodie. Old lace-up work boots—the ones he refuses to throw away because he insists they're still good for construction jobs or for when he doesn't need to look nice, even though they're all faded and beaten-up and the right one has a large scratch down the side from an almost-accident with an electric saw. 

The problem is that this probably describes what half of the inhabitants of Chicago are wearing most of the time. Adding Matt's height, weight, and coloring doesn't actually seem to narrow down the list of potential bodies all that much.

At least, Kelly muses despairingly while another ME opens the bodybag of Possibly Matt Number Three, it sure doesn't feel so.


	19. October 11th

Halstead has become, at some point, his quietly compassionate, solid shadow. It's a good thing: in all, just during the rest of that night, there's a total of four _possible identifications_. Kelly doesn't know how he makes it through the first one, let alone the other three.

He's seen dead bodies before, of course. But none of them could ever possibly be Matt.

"Breathe," Halstead reminds him softly, from next to him on the floor of the morgue's corridor after the fourth one, hand on Kelly's shoulder. "Just breathe."

Kelly breathes: it's not Matt this time either, even if he can't stop imagining it is.


	20. October 13th

"I need to work, Chief," Kelly begs.

Boden takes a few long seconds to answer "Alright," scrutinizing Kelly's determined, desperate face. "As long as you're absolutely sure you can do your job, Lieutenant."

Kelly nods, choking on his _thank you_. He's aware his teeth are clenched too tight, but he needs to hold on to something, and he knows Boden understands that.

Just like he knows if everyone keep a close eye on him during every call, they only do it out of caring.

But he can do his job—his head is in the game.

It's just not in anything else: he can't handle thinking about anyone but Matt.


	21. October 16th

His head is in the game, but he doesn't know where his heart is, because every time he sees blond hair out of the corner of his eyes, he thinks, breathlessly: _Matt_.

It's never Matt, of course, but he can't stop himself—can't stop himself from _hoping_.

Hoping that Matt'll come back.

Come back _to him_ , if to no one else.

But every time, he's just reminded Matt _ran away from him_ , and he's starting to see that point, about hope being both the best and the worst thing of all.


	22. October 18th to 20th

The first lead they get goes west: a truck driver sees Matt's picture on TV and calls the number. Intelligence manages to get him to drop by their station barely two days later. He makes a positive ID with Matt's pictures, and gives a timing and a physical description that fit with that last night Kelly saw him.

"The guy says Casey was simply walking on the side of the road when he picked him up. He wasn't hitchhiking, but he looked harmless and there was no one else around, and our guy here likes having company on the road," Halstead explains.

"What—kind of company?" Kelly asks, with a sudden new depth to the pit of anxiety now living in his stomach.

His mind has instantly jumped to the worst: Matt is no damsel in distress, but he's always been too damn _pretty_.


	23. October 20th to 27th

Halstead's eyes are understanding: "Just someone to talk to," he tries to soothe. "Or maybe just talk _at_ ," he adds with a slight crooked grin, "he hasn't shut up since he got here. Anyway, he says Casey was kinda out of it, but not in a drugged or drunk way, and that he vanished at a small gas station in western Montana. Ruzek is making phone calls."

" _Vanished?_ " Kelly repeats a bit blankly, mind still spinning.

"Stopped for gas and he was gone. The guy thought maybe that's where he'd wanted to go," Halstead explains, "Casey hadn't exactly been talkative."

"But...that's more than a twenty-four hours drive, isn't it?" Kelly says, not at all reassured—about _anything_. "They had to have stopped before, so why there?"

"I don't know," Halstead sighs. "But hopefully you'll be able to ask _him_ that soon."

But Kelly is not able to ask him that soon: the trail is already stone cold.


	24. November 6th

His phone rings with a number he doesn't know, and he hurries to answer it, unable to stop the tiny bit of hope that _maybe it's Matt_.

"Uncle Kelly?" the person on the other end asks. "It's Griffin."

He'd been about to ask—the words get stuck in his throat and block it up.

"I saw Uncle Matt on TV," Griffin says. "It's true, isn't it," he adds, not quite a question.

The voice is almost that of a young man, but the tone is the same as seven years ago, when Heather was crying her whole heart out in Matt's arms in hers and Andy's living room, and Griffin was standing there staring at him with dry eyes, clutching Ben's heaving shoulders as Ben sobbed into his shirt. _Dad's dead, isn't he, Uncle Kelly?_ he'd asked then.

"You'll find him, won't you, Uncle Kelly?" is all he asks now.

"I'll find him," Kelly breathes out. He doesn't dare promise it: he's promised to always bring this kid's father back safe, once.


	25. February 5th

Over and over, he finds himself coming back to that little gas station in western Montana, searching in concentric circles in and around the small cities surrounding it, inspecting the hiking trails.

He knows it doesn't make sense: if Matt was somewhere here, Kelly would have found him by now, one way or the other.

But it's the last place anyone's seen him. And while Kelly is out of ideas, he also can't give up.

He _can't_.


	26. February 12th

February comes by, and with it Kelly's birthday. His Dad calls.

"I've been by the firehouse," he says, and stops. Then: "Are you okay?"

Which is always a stupid question, really. Especially _now_.

"I'm fine," Kelly mumbles.

He's been sleeping in his car, surviving on take-outs and energy drinks and he's cold all the time and missing Matt worse than he'd miss a limb. He's definitely not okay.

"Kelly, if you need—money or anything," Benny offers, almost hesitantly, "all you have to do is ask."

"Do you know anyone who could help me find him?" Kelly asks.

There's a pause. "I'm sorry, son," Benny answers softly, "I can't think of anyone Wallace hasn't already contacted."

It's, really, the lousiest birthday of Kelly's life. At least nobody has the guts to inflict a happy wish on him, not even his father.

"Take care of yourself, Kelly," Benny just says before he hangs up, "you'll be no help to him if you don't."

Kelly knows that: being of help to Matt when he finds him is basically the only reason he eats at all.


	27. March 3rd

Stella calls once in a while, to check on him. He never has much to say besides _I still haven't found him_ and _I'm fine_.

This time she doesn't ask how he is: "Something came for you," she says, immediately, as soon as he picks up, "at the firehouse. A postcard."

"From _Matt_?" he asks, heart suddenly beating too fast.

"I don't know," she answers, "it's not signed, and nobody's sure of the handwriting—it looks shaky and it's kinda smudged. And it's from _Canada_."

"What does it say?" he demands, barely daring to breathe.

There's a few beats of silence, and his mind automatically thinks the very worst. "Stella?" he asks, weakly, in case it's just the connection that's given out.

"I'm gonna send you a picture of it," she answers, sounding strange. "Hang on."

She hangs up. The picture takes over two minutes to get to him and load up on his screen. But when he sees what the writing says, he understands why she couldn't read it to him.

He understands _everything_.


	28. March 3rd

" _It's from Matt_ ," Kelly insists.

"It's gonna take at least a day to get the prints back," Halstead says through his phone. "How are you so sure?"

"Nobody else calls me _Kel_ ," he answers, restlessly pacing next to his car. "Nobody else _ever has_."

"Okay," Halstead decides, "I'm sending his photo to the local PD."

" _Thank you_ ," Kelly breathes out, suddenly filled with such a rush of hopeful gratefulness he has to lean against the side of his car to not fall over.


	29. March 3rd

He calls Stella back—it's possibly the first time he does since Matt disappeared.

"Listen," she immediately says, "you don't have to explain—I get it. And I'm not trying to stand in the way. I don't _want_ to stand in the way. I—"

" _I'm sorry_ ," he interrupts.

"No," she protests, "no, _no_. That's what _he_ said too, and until I saw that postcard I thought he was saying sorry he woke us up somehow or something like that but now I get it and _I'm_ sorry and I absolutely refuse—"

"Stella," he cuts off. "Stella, none of this is your fault."

"He wouldn't have fucking _disappeared_ if _I hadn't been with you that night!_ " she chokes out.

"You don't _know_ that!" he protests. But he doesn't know how to continue: he's thought the same thing too, looking at the picture of that postcard, even if laying any kind of blame on her has never entered his head.


	30. March 3rd

It's all on him, he knows: he should just have camped out at Matt's from the very moment he heard about Dawson, instead of giving him the space he'd stupidly thought Matt needed.

"Stop it," Stella says through the phone, like she knows he's trying anyway. He stops: their relationship had never been based on bullshit.

"It really is not your fault," he insists softly, meaning it.

She sighs. "Kelly," she says quietly, "You and I, we make great friends, don't we?"

"Yes," he agrees without hesitation, grateful and more touched than he can express. "We do."

"Good," she breathes. And then: "He's _my Captain_ ," and there's tears in her voice now, but Kelly knows they're no more for him than for the shreds of what they've had together. " _He's my Captain_ , Kelly. Please bring him home."

"I will," he promises in a whisper, already praying for that with all he has.


	31. March 5th

There's been way too many people, over all those months, who, when confronted with Matt's picture, only gave Kelly sad looks and head shakes.

"He's my best friend," Kelly explains, like he does every time, to the first shelter volunteer he sees as he walks in. " _And my Captain_ ," he adds this time, because that's true for him too. "We're firefighters back in Chicago. He went through something no one should have to go though last year, and he's been missing ever since, but I have reason to believe he could be here in this city somewhere. I...I just want to bring him home," he finds himself pleading.

Maybe he's too much of a pessimist, but even here, now, he's not really expecting a positive result: that postcard, when he thinks too much about it (and Kelly's done nothing but that), sounds way too much like a goodbye.


	32. March 5th

But this time, the volunteer examines the picture, _him_ , the picture again—and looks back up at him, Matt's well-worn photo in her hands and a smile slowly lighting up her whole face. Her eyes are nothing but kindness, and a strange sort of _awe_.

"You're looking for _The Angel_ ," she says.

And Kelly's heart does this weird fluttery thing in his chest: suddenly, he's hoping so fervently, so desperately, he's almost dizzy with it.


	33. March 5th

"You've seen him?" Kelly asks, barely daring to breathe. "Really? Here? When? _Is he here?_ "

She shakes her head negatively this time, and Kelly's soaring heart sinks all the way to his toes at the too-familiar gesture.

"He _was_ here," she hastens to explain, "but no one's seen him since he left the shelter...let me think—that was two days before Valentine's day. I asked around town after I saw he was gone, but no one had any idea where he went," she adds regretfully. "He wasn't much of a talker—I don't think he even told anyone his name."

"Matt," Kelly croaks, throat tight, fighting horribly-disappointed tears. Two days before Valentine's day. That's his goddamn birthday. "His name is Matt."

"God's gift," she says, smiling at him a bit sadly, "it suits him."


	34. March 5th

Her name is Annabelle, she's well in her sixties and has been volunteering in shelters and soup kitchens for more than half her life. Before she retired, she was a kindergarten teacher, and it makes Kelly laugh a little, wetly, as she ushers him into a chair and forces a mug of steaming tea on him, both because she has that no-nonsense-but-still-motherly manner about her, and for how much it reminds him of Donna.

"He first walked in here in early January," she tells him, sitting down in front of him with her own mug, "about a week or so after the New Year. None of us had seen him before, but some of our newest residents then knew him already—he'd either helped them get to us, shared food with them, or given them something of his. One said he was teaching those who didn't want to go to a shelter how to keep warm safely with small controlled fires and such. They were already calling him The Angel."

The tea burns Kelly's throat, but somehow soothes it as well. Coupled with _finally_ having news of Matt—even _old_ news, it's weirdly comforting.


	35. July 28th

At times, it feels like he's chasing a ghost: like Matt just keeps slipping through his fingers, like Kelly is never going to catch him—never going to be able to grasp his arm and pull him close and _hold on_.

When he does manage to sleep, he dreams about it. Dreams of running after him, always three steps behind, and never reaching him.

It _haunts_ him.

And, he knows with resigned, chilled certainty, it will continue to haunt him until he either finds Matt, or dies trying: this isn't like with Shay or Andy—not loss, not really. Just the perpetual possibility of it, in the form of the worst kind of uncertainties. A blackhole made of nothing but the darkest nightmares the world could ever make real.

But still, Kelly keeps chasing: he can no more stop than he can give up breathing.


	36. December 2nd

Second floor, fifth door. He runs all the way there, heart beating too fast and too loud, and stops abruptly in front of it: by what he's gathered, Matt _should_ be in there—but in what condition? What if Kelly knocks, and Matt doesn't answer— _can't_ answer?

What if it's too late? 

_Two days_ , Matt's landlady has said, she hasn't seen him in _two days_ —nobody has. And Kelly knows only too well that's a timespan that only _seems_ short: things can go wrong so quickly, so randomly, there's no telling what might have happened to Matt in that time.

There's no telling what he might have done to himself.


	37. December 2nd

But he's in here—he _has to be in here_. And Kelly _has_ to knock: fourteen months since Matt disappeared, nine since Kelly received that postcard, and he's never been so close to only be _two days_ behind. To maybe, at last, catch up on him. Finally being able to hold him.

So he rests his forehead and both his fists against the door, and forces himself to take deep breaths until his heart slows down. Straightens up, eventually, wipes his palms against his jeans. Takes another deep breath.

And knocks.


	38. December 2nd

His calming breathing pause prove to be for absolutely naught when there's no answer: his heart skyrockets back up, leaving him leaning against the door in sudden nauseated dizziness. If he's _two days too late_ , he'll never be able to forgive himself.

"Matt," he hears himself plead, in some kind of hurt, choked whisper, from the heap against the door he's slowly becoming. If he's two days too late, he doesn't know what he'll do to himself.

But no, no, no, he can't give up, can't give up on Matt, ever, not until—he _can't give up_. Not yet. Maybe he's sleeping. Maybe he's not there. Maybe he could still answer. Kelly's not ready to go ask the landlady for the key yet. He's too terrified of what he'll find inside if he does.

So he forces himself to straighten up again and ask louder: " _Matt?_ "

And he hears a small creak from inside.

Like an old bedspring, maybe.

_Like someone moving._


	39. December 2nd

" _Matt?_ " Kelly repeats, far more desperately, ear against the door. He knocks again, gently, holding in his breath. His heart is beating way too loudly.

He hears _nothing_ , nothing but his own fucking heartbeat, and he feels like he's going to throw up and break down crying and maybe have a heart attack all at once. He might need that key, after all, but he can't accept that—he's never going to be able to accept that.

" _Matt?_ " he pleads again, wiping his eyes. And then he just...looses it. Babbles and rambles and _begs_.


	40. December 2nd

He's not really aware of what he's saying: he's trembling a little and his eyes keep filling up and his heart has climbed all the way to his throat. But Matt is inside— _has to be_ , and Kelly might have finally reached his breaking point, but he _knows_ he didn't hallucinate that noise, and maybe if he keeps talking, Matt will...open the door. Be okay. Kelly hasn't really thought past finding him, besides an indefinite wish to take him home and possibly literally sit on him for the rest of eternity so he can never run off again.

But if no one's seen him for _two days_...

"I'm going to _break down that door_ if you don't answer," Kelly croaks desperately, momentarily forgetting all about the landlady's key. His imagination is running wild and horrid on him again, making his voice crack to a painful stop. He has to swallow a few times, heartbeat too damn loud, sure he's tasting bile, sure he's going to have to get that key.


	41. December 2nd

Except there's another creak. And a soft shuffling. Almost impossible to hear—but followed by the doorknob slowly turning.

It's like the whole world—like all of time itself falls away: it doesn't matter how Kelly's gotten here, or how long it's taken him, not if the knob is turning. He moves back a step, automatically making welcoming room—making _Matt-sized space_ , suddenly so full of _everything_ he's incapable of making a sound or forming a thought and nearly forgetting to breathe altogether.

And Matt opens the door.

_Matt opens the door._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that's it. In terms of chronological order, this is the last drabble, guys. Sorry, but that was always the plan: this is Kelly without Matt, and now that they've found each other again...it warrants a whole new fic! (Fear not, it _will_ have Kelly up on that hill. And snuggles. Lots of snuggles. And Kelly will probably make Matt wear his leather jacket, and Matt will probably cuddle into it like the affection-starved kitten he is.)
> 
> This thing here will still get (randomly) updated though: I have huge time gaps to fill!


End file.
